The nation’s looming entitlement crisis

Medicare and Social Security are definitely in trouble.

Marcia Romano Las Vegas

June 9, 2018 - 9:00 pm

In response to your Thursday editorial written on the health of Social Security and Medicare:

While you are correct in some instances — such as the Agenda Project having a leftist agenda — attempting to fix the entitlement problem through the Obama-era Bowles-Simpson plan is hardly a remedy, at least the way it was presented as a debt-reduction program in 2010. This does seem like a joke, given that the debt under Barack Obama soared to record levels.

Medicare and Social Security are definitely in trouble. But any proposed fixes must not include lowering benefits for those who are near or at retirement. It is too late for them to do anything else after paying into the system all their working lives. Any change in policy or privatization should start with people 55 and younger so they have time to prepare. It also should not reward people who have never paid into the system. Of course, this does not include the truly disabled.

Medicare is expected to go broke three years earlier than last year’s report had predicted because of the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. Adding people to the Medicaid rolls is nothing more than a redistribution of wealth and benefits from those who have paid to those who have not. Too many people think they are owed and do not expect to carry any of the tax burden.

Expanding benefits to those who have never paid into the system is not only terrible economic policy, it is a totally immoral thing to do to those who have been responsible and paid their fair share all along.

It is not selfish for taxpayers to resist supporting all the freeloaders, including new arrivals to this country. But it is terribly selfish to expect the taxpayers to continue to do so with no end in sight. That is what is unsustainable.